Archive for category: Neurology

Background: Establishing IV access has become the norm for patients presenting to the ED. However with increasing patient volumes, difficulty and delays in acquiring IV access, it seems that anything that could expedite care, reduce pain and suffering, and improve patient care would be welcomed in the ED. There are several tricks I have learned along […]

Background: Headache is a common presentation to the emergency department (ED) accounting for 2% of all visits [1]. Of the patients that present with headache,1 – 3% will be due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) [1]. SAH is a true diagnostic dilemma as delays in diagnosis can lead to significant morbidity and mortality. Further complicating matters, […]

Background: The assessment and management of the acute onset headache from the perspective of the emergency department is a point of contention and discussion commonly faced by emergency providers. The Ottawa Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Rule is a clinical decision making instrument that was created to help identify patients who need further workup beyond a basic history and […]

Background: Spontaneous, non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage, is one of the only stroke subtypes without a proven treatment. It is not as common as ischemic stroke, representing up to 20% of all strokes, but it accounts for almost half of all stroke deaths worldwide. Furthermore, about a quarter of intracerebral hemorrhage can be complicated by hematoma expansion which can […]